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Cooler Master has been in the PSU business for the last few years and it has made its mark on the industry. However, in keeping with the times and the competition that is always getting better, it is constantly revamping its PSU lineup. The new V-series is its latest high-end refresh.

The V-series consists of 700W, 850W and 1000W power supply units, and each boasts 80 PLUS Gold efficiency. This means that these PSUs come with over 90% efficiency under a 50% workload. We already had a chance to test the V1000 and today we'll take a look at the V700, which is also a fully modular design.

The box is slightly bigger than what we’ve come to expect, but the PSU itself is not oversized, it features practically standard dimensions. The cable bag takes up quite a bit of room in the box since it’s packed with a wide range of cables. It can be also practical for storage, to keep unused cables from getting lost.

There are plenty of cables to choose from and they are long enough for even the biggest chassis out there. We appreciated the decision to include 720mm long 12V CPU cables, as too many PSUs ship with short cables. Most vendors still ship 550mm long cables and they don’t offer nearly as much flexibility as we’d like. Enthusiasts like to keep their rigs nice and tidy, hence the ability to nicely tuck cables somewhere where they don’t interfere with other components is a must. Our only complaint is the relatively tight spacing of peripheral connectors.

Only the thick ATX cable is wrapped in a non-transparent mesh, while all the others are flat. The cables feel sturdy, but they are flexible enough to handle with ease.

The V700 measures 150 x 86 x 170 mm and it will fit in all regular cases. It weighs about 1.9kg. Since it’s a modular design we can say that the V700 is very compact for its class. The modular approach also allows users only to use the cables they actually need, keeping the chassis uncluttered.

As far as the exterior goes, we should commend the quality of the black finish and the rigidity of the metal chassis, which is 0.9mm thicks. The metal skin of the V700 features a nice matte black finish and won't catch dust and prints. It looks and feels like a quality product.

All the cable connectors are properly laid out and marked, so even less experienced users should have no trouble with setting it up. The spec sticker is on top and it features the 80 PLUS certificate. The V700 also features a +12V singel rail that can take up to 58 amps.

Another eye pleasing feature is the aluminium-look mesh used on the bottom of the unit, which looks quite nice but you won’t get to see much of it once it is installed.

The 135mm comes from Protechnic. Its designation is MGA13512XF-025 and it utilizes a 2-pin connector.The ON/OFF switch feels very robust and it has a telltale click.

A look inside the V700 reveals some high quality components and that should be appreciated by any enthusiasts. It is easy to see that the interior resembles the Seasonic KM3, which is a good thing since Seasonic is synonymous with high quality PSUs and we’re glad to see their components inside Cooler Master’s latest PSU.

Cooler Master V700 is a 700W power supply. It is 80 PLUS Gold certified, which means that it has to churn out 87%, 90% and 87% efficiency for respective workloads of 20%, 50% and 100%. This also means that it's efficient and won't waste energy. Unfortunately, we didn’t have access to professional PSU testing equipment, so we'll have to rely on 80plus.org's data. The following graph shows that efficiency is above or around 90% most of the time. You can find out more here.

Practical application tests prove that this is a quality PSU. Two Geforce GTX 780 graphics cards in SLI will helped us place a lot of strain on the V700, so that we could test fan loudness and stability of the entire rig.

One of the problems faced by quite a few high-end PSU users is that their powerful PSUs can cause the fuse to switch off as soon as the PSU is switched on. This shouldn’t happen, but it can happen if the PSU draws too much power, a high inrush current. As for the V700 we can confirm that we did not experience any such issues.

In standby mode the power consumption was just 0.2W. Our test rig featured an EVGA X79 FTW motherboard, Sandy Bridge-E Core i7 3820 (4.2GHz) and two Geforce GTX 780 cards in SLI. We used Prime95 to stress the CPU and Unigine Heaven to stress the graphics cards. Under full CPU and graphics card load, V700 ran like a charm. Maximum consumption was 656W.

The fan (Protechnic MGA13512XF-O2) was inaudible in idle mode but also stays quiet under full load. According to the spec sheet, the fan can run at 1800RPM, but it did not exceed 1000RPM during our tests.

The Cooler Master V-series of PSUs consists of three models ranging from 700W to 1000W and all of them come with an 80 PLUS Gold certificate. The V1000 impressed us with good build quality and rock solid performance, so guess what - the same applies to the V700. It is just a matter of capacity and pricing. Efficiency is rated at more than 90% and the PSU comes with a single fat +12V rail up to 56A, which should meet the needs of most gamers.

The V-series employs Seasonic’s new KM3 platform and other components used in its design are top notch. All V-series PSUs feature a modular design with flat cables, which are pretty practical as they’re more flexible than standard cables. Although all thre PSUs from V-series are modular thier dimensions are standard and it will fit into virtually any chassis.

Now that graphics cards and CPU collers have become very quiet, users tend to notice other noise sources in their rigs. It can be quite frustrating to buy a powerful and pricey PSU only to be disappointed by a subpar fan, which are quite common even in higher end units. As far as the V-series goes, we can recommend it as very quiet indeed. The V700 proved quiet regardless of load.

Although 700W is not enough for high-end configurations such as an SLI with high end graphics cards, it should be more than adequate for standard mid-range Crossfire or SLI setups. We gave it a go with two GTX 780 cards and it worked just fine.

Prices start at €113 (163€ for the the V1000) and all things considered the V700 is well worth it, hence we can recommend to anyone looking for a quality PSU.